


[insert your own long, vaguely metaphorical, and all in lowercase title here]

by ghost_lingering



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-26
Updated: 2009-03-26
Packaged: 2017-10-03 11:31:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghost_lingering/pseuds/ghost_lingering
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>merlin obeys arthur's orders (sometimes)</p>
            </blockquote>





	[insert your own long, vaguely metaphorical, and all in lowercase title here]

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted as comment!fic [here](http://bookshop.livejournal.com/964509.html?thread=34377629#t34377629) [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/mordororbust/profile)[**mordororbust**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/mordororbust/) betas fic for me lightning fast while she is at work, but only when she is not being eaten by Pearl Jam footage. p.s. the title of this document while I was writing it was 'Arthur is a prat'. Just thought y'all might be interested in that.

"He'll come back," Gwen said, reaching out as if to take his hand, then pulling back at the last moment, "He's loyal to you."

Arthur gave a half-smile, humorless, and didn't look over at her, even when she got up to leave.

"Morgana didn't," he said, and Gwen paused in the doorway.

"Morgana didn't live to serve you," she said, and then left his chambers, the faint scrape of the door echoing behind her.

He turned back to his wine and thought of Morgana and their childish clashes of swords, then words, once Uther had put a stop to the fighting. Morgana loved him like a foolish brother, loved Camelot like home and Uther like a father and still she had left. Even when the news of Uther's death and the repeal of all bans on magic had crossed from one coast to the other, through the halls of foreign kings and in the dusty floors of village homes, she had not returned.

The last words he had said to her were, "Please," and "When he dies you will return?" and "You cannot possibly think I care that you do magic," while she ignored him, and ordered Gwen to help her with her horse. She had left, though Uther was dying slowly in his bed, though Arthur was king in everything but name, though she could not possibly think that he would put his own family to death.

"Then what of Merlin?" she had asked him, "You threw him out when you learned about his magic." And she had mounted and gone off.

Gwen served him now. It wasn't _proper_, but it was fitting: the two left behind, one the master, one the maid. She knows his armor better than Merlin did, knows the ways of court, knows what it is like to lose a father, though he curses himself that he is weak enough to take comfort from _her_ about, of all things, _that_.

But he is not Morgana and she is not Merlin.

The last thing he said to Merlin, two years ago now, before he father fell ill (and far before Morgana left) was:

"I order you to leave, because I cannot turn you over to my father," and then, looking away that so he didn't have to look at Merlin's face, "_He knows_, Merlin, my father knows."

When he orders Gwen to fill his bath, or clean his boots, or polish armor she does it quickly and without complaint. But he misses the servant who would tarry at the tasks just to draw out their bickering, who had learned to do things well, but would leave an unimportant job undone so that Arthur could have something to complain about, who would roll his eyes at orders, who would make him laugh.

But of course he left. And Arthur curses that of all the times Merlin could have chosen to obey without hesitation it was that order, _that one_, that he picked. Gwen is wrong, he knows: Merlin would not return to the prince who had betrayed him by casting him out.

+++

But Arthur was wrong. Gwen was kind enough to refrain from telling him that she was right, but he was too elated and terrified to care.

"You _came back_," Arthur said, stupidly, looking at Merlin's gold-blue eyes, which were still focused on the crown he now wore on his head.

"It's lop-sided," Merlin observed and Gwen tried to stifle a laugh. He glared at her, but she had long since stopped believing in his empty threats.

She smiled at him. "I'll leave you two," she said, walking over and hugging Merlin again, "Welcome home."

When she left it was just them, in the throne room, and Arthur had to fight the urge to say, again, _You came back_.

"I'm sorry," Merlin said, which was a ridiculous thing to say, Arthur thought: it could mean anything.

"For what?" he asked, as though Merlin were here every day, as if he hadn't just returned after years of being gone.

"Your father," Merlin said, "And for leaving, I suppose, though I didn't have a choice-you and Gaius and Morgana and everyone were all, well. I tried to put a charm on you, by the way, to mute magic around you. It was for your safety, but I think it might be why Morgana left."

"Have you seen her?" Arthur asked, "Have you-"

Merlin shook his head. "No. Well. Once or twice-but she's doing fine, Arthur. She's-I think she's happier now then when she was at court." He stepped forward and then looked to the side and swallowed, and suddenly Arthur couldn't bear it, the line of Merlin's throat, and the way his tunic opened in a V at the neck and Arthur curled his fingers around the armrests of his throne.

"Come here," he said, "Come here."

For a brief moment, as Arthur realized that Merlin had now obeyed two orders in a row without complaint, his breath caught. But then Merlin was close enough for him to wrap his fingers around Merlin's slender wrist and smooth his other hand up Merlin's neck and when he whispered, "Kiss me," against Merlin's lips it was quiet enough that he barely thought it any kind of order at all.


End file.
